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This study aims to examine the effectiveness of governance in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and explores if board independence enhances the firm value of SOEs in India and China. The study further explores the moderation impact of promoter ownership in enhancing firm value.

The study is confined to government-owned enterprises in India and China and is based on a sample of 53 central government-owned firms listed in National Stock Exchange of India and 110 state-owned firms listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange of China for the period 2010–2017. A fixed-effect panel regression analysis has been used to examine the effect of board independence on firm value.

The study found that board independence adds value to the SOEs in India and China and the presence of independent directors (IDs) in the board of SOEs act as better monitors of performance to protect the interest of minority shareholders. Probably, they minimize agency conflict and provide resources to the firm and management. The greater the government shareholdings, the board independence further enhances value of SOEs in India and China.

Compliance with guidelines on IDs in SOEs serves as an effective corporate governance mechanism and the presence of IDs can signal better firm performance. The government promoters align with the IDs in better monitoring of SOE performance.

The study is unique and contributes to the literature by examining the impact of board independence on firm value in the context of SOEs in India and China and also provides insight on the effect of promoter ownership on the effectiveness on board independence.

The paper seeks to bring focus to the significance of the role of directors in corporate performance. The principles of good governance are not unknown to the Indian traditions. Today adoption of good corporate governance practices has emerged as an integral element for doing business. Understanding how boards impact on corporate performance is a question central to the corporate governance research agenda.

The paper explores the theoretical and historical link to the structure and functioning of the board of directors with special emphasis of the norms established by the Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

As global business interest in India keeps growing, so does the expectation that Indian companies must play – and be seen to play – by rules that are clear to international investors. Demands have long been heard for greater transparency in the way Indian companies do business. The reforms, ordained by the SEBI, are laid out in amendments to Clause 49 of the companies listing agreement with Indian stock exchanges, a section that pertains to corporate governance. Among the requirements are: more independent directors on boards and audit committees; a code of conduct for board members; a larger role for the audit committee; mandatory risk assessments and certification by the chief executive officer and chief financial officer of the effectiveness of internal accounting controls.

The paper advances the understanding of board structure and performance in Indian corporate governance system by examining the norms established by the SEBI.

This study aims to determine experimentally factors affecting the satisfaction of retail stock investors with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by the Government of India and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Also, an effort has been made to gauge the level of satisfaction of retail equities investors with the laws and guidelines developed by the Indian Government and SEBI for their invested funds.

To accomplish the study’s goals, a well-structured questionnaire was created with the help of a literature review, and copies of it were filled by Punjabi retail equities investors with the aid of stockbrokers, i.e. intermediaries. Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali-area intermediaries were chosen using a random selection procedure. Xerox copies of the questionnaire were given to the intermediaries, who were then asked to collect responses from their clients. Some intermediaries requested the researcher to sit in their offices to collect responses from their clients. Only 373 questionnaires out of 1,000 questionnaires that were provided had been received back. Only 328 copies were correctly filled by the equity investors. To conduct the analysis, 328 copies, which were fully completed, were used as data. The appropriate approaches, such as descriptives, factor analysis and ordinal regression analysis, were used to study the data.

With the aid of factor analysis, four factors have been identified that influence investors’ satisfaction with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by government and SEBI regulations, including regulations addressing primary and secondary market dealings, rules for investor awareness and protection, rules to prevent company malpractices and laws for corporate governance and investor protection. The impact of these four components on investor satisfaction has been investigated using ordinal regression analysis. The pseudo-R-square statistics for the ordinal regression model demonstrated the model’s capacity for the explanation. The findings suggested that a significant amount of the overall satisfaction score about the various investor protection measures implemented by the government/SEBI has been explained by the regression model.

A study could be conducted to analyse the perspective of various stakeholders towards the disclosures made and norms followed by corporate houses. The current study may be expanded to cover the entire nation because it is only at the state level currently. It might be conceivable to examine how investments made in the retail capital market affect investors in rural areas. The influence of reforms on the functioning of stock markets could potentially be examined through another study. It could be possible to undertake a study on female investors’ knowledge about retail investment trends. The effect of digital stock trading could be examined in India. The effect of technological innovations on capital markets can be studied.

This research would be extremely useful to regulators in developing policies to protect retail equities investors. Investors are required to be safeguarded and protected to deal freely in the securities market, so they should be given more freedom in terms of investor protection measures. Stock exchanges should have the potential to bring about technological advancements in trading to protect investors from any kind of financial loss. Since the government has the power to create rules and regulations to strengthen investor protection. So, this research will be extremely useful to the government.

This work has societal ramifications. Because when adequate rules and regulations are in place to safeguard investors, they will be able to invest freely. Companies will use capital wisely and profitably. Companies should undertake tasks towards corporate social responsibility out of profits because corporate houses are part and parcel of society only.

Many investors may lack the necessary expertise to make sound financial judgments. They might not be aware of the entire risk-reward profile of various investment options. However, they must know various investor protection measures taken by the Government of India & Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to safeguard their interests. Investors must be well-informed on the precautions to take while dealing with market intermediaries, as well as in the stock market.

This study aims to investigate the role of corporate governance practices in restraining earnings management in Indian commercial banks.

Estimation of earnings management is based on discretionary loan loss provision and discretionary realised security gains and losses using Beatty et al. (2002) model. The effect of corporate governance on earnings management is examined by performing two-way least square dummy variable regression. Data for a period of five years (2016–2020) is collected from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy ProwessIQ database, Reserve Bank of India website, annual report of banks, National Stock Exchange and bank’s website.

Regression results exhibit that number of board committees, size and independence of audit committee and joint audit are significantly effective in curbing earnings management. Other board-related variables (size, independence, meetings and diligence) and audit committee variables (meetings and diligence) are not effective in restraining earnings management in Indian banks.

The findings may prove to be helpful to regulators, board of directors and investors. It shows the weak area of corporate governance in India that is lack of autonomy to independent directors, which needs regulators attention and it also suggests that the number of independent auditors should be adequate for audit purposes. The board of directors must ensure the formulation of an adequate number of committees, which perform their own super specialised functions. This study brings an alarm to investors not to rely on reported earnings alone as they may be manipulated.

This paper substantiates the scant literature on the role of corporate governance practices in restraining earnings management in banks of emerging markets and to the best of the authors’ knowledge impact of joint audits on earnings management is previously unexplored in Indian banks, which are examined in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the significance of board gender diversity (BGD) on the firm's intellectual capital (IC) performance of 272 Indian firms listed on the National Stock Exchange during 2007–2019. Considering the recent regulatory amendment by the Indian regulatory system (Security Exchange Board of India, 2018) which mandates at least one female independent directors on boards of all listed companies.

Based on theories and literature reviews, hypotheses were developed. This paper uses the proportion of female director on board and proportion of female independent directors to measure BGD and modified value-added intellectual coefficient (MVAIC) methodology to measure firms' IC performance. Two-step system-generalised method of moment panel data regression analysis has been employed to identify the variables that significantly affect IC performance.

This paper finds female representation on boards has a significant impact on MVAIC; capital employed efficiency shows the strongest association with female directors on board, followed by structural capital efficiency and human capital efficiency, while relational capital efficiency shows no significant effect. The results further demonstrate that female independent director has a significant but negative impact on IC.

As the study is limited to the listed firms of an emerging economy with a mandatory female quota for boards. Thus to increase the generalizability of findings, future research can be extended to include all listed and non-listed firms from another emerging economy with a mandatory female quota.

From the practical perspective, this study bridges the gap between theory and practice in terms of providing a deeper understanding to the policymakers and Indian regulatory bodies like the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Securities Exchange Board on the importance of including female members on board as a vital contributing factor for leveraging firm's intangible performance.

Using resource dependency theory and agency, this study extends the literature on IC efficiency and female representation on boards by presenting the research outcome for Indian listed firms. This paper, addressing the recent changes introduced by Indian regulators and using the female independent directors on board, is amongst the first attempts to assess the relevance of BGD and IC performance. This issue has still not been discussed and analysed by researchers in India.

Utilising the resource dependency theory, this study investigates the impact of board interlocks (CEOs' interlocks, women board interlocks, independent board interlocks and total board interlocks) on carbon emissions performance in India.

This research applies varieties of regression methods comprising robust least squares, generalised method of moments and Heckman's regression on a final sample of 63 of India's top 200 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listed companies that voluntarily participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project's (CDP) Climate Change Program and disclose their climate change data for years 2013–2020.

We provide strong evidence for a strong negative association between CEOs' interlocks and women board interlocks on carbon emissions performance. Independent and total board interlocks are not found to significantly affect carbon emissions performance.

Our sample is restricted to the proportion of the top 200 BSE firms that voluntarily submit their carbon emissions data to CDP. Also, the study's focus is India, limiting the generalisation of our findings to other emerging economies.

The study's findings provide valuable insight for regulators and corporate board of directors on the important role of CEOs and women board who interlock with other firms in steering the carbon emissions reduction. Specifically, the corporate board of directors should encourage CEOs to build more networks through outside board memberships. The regulators should revisit the Companies Act, 2013 and the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulation to increase the number of multiple directorships of CEOs and women board of directors.

This study responds to the dearth of literature on the efficacy of board interlocks on carbon emissions performance in emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effectiveness of insider trading enforcement actions in India and international dimensions.

The research is based on the insider trading regulations and amendments made during the period 1992-2015.

The notable observation of the study is the dearth of insider trading conviction and the paucity of prosecution for insider trading offences in India. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that surveillance and enforcement matter more than the drafting of the relevant statutes and regulations in emerging markets. Whereas, developed countries have a better record of prosecution than emerging markets.

Future research may explore the factors that hinder effective regulation and recommend new methods to increase the impact of Securities and Exchange Board of India insider trading regulation.

The current paper presents guidance for the foreign institutional investors, regulators and market participants on insider trading regulation and prosecution in India.

This paper aims to focus on compliance of workplace sexual harassment-related provisions under Indian companies and securities law, based on an empirical analysis of companies’ sexual harassment-related disclosures contained within their directors’ annual reports (ARs). Specifically, sections devoted to sexual harassment-related disclosures, inbuilt within directors’ ARs for the financial year 2019–2020 for a selected sample of companies listed under the National Stock Exchange, have been analysed.

To examine the nature of companies’ disclosures to demonstrate their compliance with statutory requirements under the POSH law, aligned with the Companies (Accounts) Rules, 2014 and Securities and Exchange Board of India’s regulations, an empirical-based, descriptive content analysis of ARs of 200 listed companies were used.

This study primarily finds that the majority of companies from the sample have disclosed to have prepared a corporate-level policy, as required under the POSH law. As also required under the POSH law, companies, reportedly, have constituted an Internal Complaints Committee to adjudicate and dispose of incidents related to sexual misconduct reported at their workplaces. However, companies lack in disclosing qualitative information, with sufficient detail, on many important aspects related to prevention and resolution of reported cases of workplace sexual harassment.

This paper adds to the broader narrative of the lacunae within the disclosure and reporting requirements on enhancing the liabilities of the companies to prevent and address sexual harassment under India’s corporate and securities regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance implications of board size, composition and frequency of board meetings on the performance of banks.

The performance of banks is assessed on various parameters such as return on assets (ROA), Tobin’s Q, non-performing asset ratio (NPA ratio) and the net write-off ratio (NWO ratio). The effects of changes in board size and composition and frequency of meetings on the performance of banks are investigated using feasible generalized least square (FGLS) estimation of panel data covering a time span of five years concerning 40 banks incorporated in India. Frequency of board meetings is taken as a proxy for board activity and involvement. The authors have also tested for endogeneity issues in the model.

A curvilinear relationship was found between the board size and performance of banks. The authors have modelled a cubic form of the relationship for Indian banks. The authors’ findings indicate that an increase in board size is associated with better bank performance within both low and high board size ranges. Alternatively, increased board size is negatively associated with bank performance in the intermediate board size range. The study did not find any significant relationship between performance and frequency of board meetings and board composition.

The behavioural variables reflecting the involvement of the board have not been incorporated in the model to determine the impact of board involvement on the performance of banks owing to the availability of data. It is hoped that this paper will be useful for major regulatory bodies such as the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Company Law Board (CLB) and stock exchanges in India and other emerging economies in devising listing norms and other governance-related aspects.

Non-linear relationships between the board size and performance are not normally prevalent in emerging economies, especially in the banking sector. However, such a relationship exists among the Indian banks. This paper is the first of its kind to identify and address the same.